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The dry cleaning business was extremely important on my mother’s
side of the family. My Uncle Nate hadn’t been a combat soldier like
Norb Berlowitz, but Nate had still been in the army during the war.
He was assigned to a snack bar at a large training base in Texas.
When he left the army Uncle Nate opened a store called Same Day
Cleaners which specialized in dry cleaning police uniforms and any
other clothing owned by policemen or their families. If you were a
policeman or related to one, or even just a friend of a policeman,
you could get your clothes dry cleaned at a discount by Same Day
Cleaners. Uncle Nate wasn’t stingy about who got the discounts.
The discounts were a way of getting people into the Same Day
Cleaners stores.
The Harrison Wholesale Company used a discount method similar
to Same Day Cleaners but on a larger scale. If you wanted to buy
something at Harrison Wholesale, you could see the official price on
a page in the Harrison Wholesale catalog. If you looked to the left of
the official price you would see some numbers that were a code for
the discounted price. All you needed to obtain the discount was a
Harrison Wholesale card, which was easy to get. It was just a matter
of asking for one.
Harrison Wholesale was much bigger than Same Day Cleaners.
There were several Harrison Wholesale stores around Chicago
and also stores in Milwaukee, Indianapolis, and Cleveland. Same
Day Cleaners had only two stores, both on the North Side of Chicago,
which annoyed Uncle Nate. It also annoyed him that my father was
bombed by a blimp in World War One and Norb Berlowitz had been
wounded in World War Two. My mother said that was why Uncle Nate
started wearing a gun in his belt at Same Day Cleaners and why he
wanted to be palzy-walzy with policemen. He was also rather short.
Uncle Irving, Aunt Dorothy’s husband, had never been in the army
but he didn’t care. He was a good athlete who could stand on his
head and then switch into a handstand. Uncle Irving had a dry cleaning
store on Halsted Street but Uncle Nate viewed it as a small time operation
that was barely scraping by. He wanted Uncle Irving to start working at
Same Day Cleaners, and maybe eventually he would become a store
manager.
Meanwhile my mother would badger my father about giving Uncle
Irving a manager’s job at Harrison Wholesale. Finally my father agreed,
except Uncle Irving and his family would have to move to Cleveland.
However, Uncle Irving was too proud to close his dry cleaning store in
spite of the offers from Uncle Nate and my father. It was a source of
tension on my mother’s side of the family.
When my mother and Aunt Dorothy went to look for porcelain figurines,
sometimes Victor and I stayed at Victor’s house but usually we went
along. My mother drove our 1952 Cadillac with Aunt Dorothy beside her
and with us in the back seat. How long and boring those rides were, all
the way into Wisconsin or Indiana searching for antique stores. Victor
and I played a game where the first person who saw a car with an out of
state license plate was allowed to hit the other person. There were hardly
any of those licenses in Wisconsin or Indiana.
My mother and Aunt Dorothy never stopped talking during the long drives
and sometimes they got into arguments. Once my mother said that Aunt
Dorothy should tell Uncle Irving that he should accept my father’s offer of
a job at Harrison Wholesale in Cleveland.
Aunt Dorothy said, “Leah, Irv has his heart set on keeping the plant open,”
“The plant? That’s a good one!” my mother laughed. “Meanwhile you’re
ironing grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner.” It was a joke in the family
that Aunt Dorothy made grilled cheese sandwiches using a hand iron.
“Well, not everyone marries her rich boss like you did,” Aunt Dorothy said,
but not angrily. It was more like she would start to cry.
“You’re right about that, Dorothy, and before I married a rich man I was
working full-time and also changing Victor’s diapers in the middle of
the night. Don’t forget that. And since I married a rich man you’re getting
a check from him every month. And you’re not the only one. Lenore
Berlowitz, Bess Turk, Seymour Berlowitz, they’re all schnorers. Norb
Berlowitz is the only one who ever shows any appreciation. Lou even
endowed a research laboratory at Michael Reese Hospital. We went
down to see it and they were doing research on tapeworms. I got
nauseated. Lou pays college tuition for kids in the middle of nowhere.
I don’t even know how that happens. We get letters from kids in
Kentucky saying thanks for paying for me to go to college. At least
they write a letter. Seymour Berlowitz never wrote a letter about
the University of Wisconsin. These people treat Lou like a smorgasbord.”
Aunt Dorothy was quietly sobbing into a kleenex. It was true that
she had crossed a boundary by accusing my mother of marrying
for money. But it was time for my mother to quiet down. What if
Aunt Dorothy got angry instead of just crying? Of course she knew
about my adoption. Did she know about my mother’s illness?
But my mother wasn’t finished. “I have to tell you something, Dorothy,
and I’m only saying it because things have to change. There are times
when people drop off a load of dry cleaning at Irving’s store and
because Irving doesn’t even have enough money to buy solvents
Irving has to take the load to another dry cleaner. He actually has
to do that, so then when Irving finally gets paid then the money goes straight
back to the other dry cleaner. And do you know who the other dry cleaner
is, Dorothy? It’s Same Day Cleaners. Nate told me this himself. Irving is
paying Nate to do his dry cleaning. We all know he’s a shtunk but
Nate was completely flabbergasted.”
There were times my mother stayed in bed for days, lying on her back with
her arm over her eyes. That always frightened me, and it was happening
more often. But other times she would really step on the gas. We were
going at least seventy on a two-lane highway.
“Mom….” I said. But she didn’t hear me.
“I understand that Irving doesn’t want to work for Nate. I wouldn’t want
to work for Nate either. Okay, so work for Harrison Wholesale. You have
to go to Cleveland but that won’t be forever. Lou can’t bring Irving
in as a manager starting tomorrow. Norb Berlowitz worked for two
years as an order picker.”
“Mom….”
Suddenly Aunt Dorothy erupted. “You knew just what you were
doing when you went to work at Harrison Wholesale, Leah! You even
told me what your goddamned plan was!”
I looked at Victor helplessly. He had an idea. The Cadillac provided a
cigarette lighter in the back seat. Victor grabbed my arm and burned
it with the cigarette lighter. Of course I shrieked but at least it got
their attention. My mother swerved the car to the side of the road.
Now they were both screaming at Victor. He just sat there. He had
sacrificed himself. I rubbed my scalded arm. They were making
a federal case out of it, as my father would say.
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Author: Mitch Sisskind
